The production of a new feature-length animated film directed by Dorota Kobiela, who was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for the film Loving Vincent about the life of Vincent Van Gogh, is coming to an end in the Belgrade studio Lumina, co-produced by Digitalkraft from Serbia, produced by Ivan Pribićević and Jelena Angelovski. 22 painters from Serbia worked on The Peasants, with supervisors Biserka Petrović and Vladimir Vinkić, together with the VFX team of the production company Digitalkraft.
Co-producer Ivan Pribićević had this to say about the preparation of this production: “We met the co-producers from Poland in 2019. They already had experience with our painters Biserko Petrović and Vladimir Vinkić and knew that, with them, they could create an efficient team. The other side of the coin is our experience in post-production, where we actually contributed to the film by preparing shots for the painters. We dealt with the post-production of the recorded material so that the painters would get sufficiently clean and aesthetically defined shots, and could do their work more simply. All of this would not have happened without my colleague Jelena Angelovski, who has a lot of experience in production, so together we are an ideal team that has been pushing through this project for two and a half years. This is the peak of some minority co-production in Serbia, the importance of which will be felt only when the film is released”.
Ana Pakljanac, supervisor of visual effects on the film, said this about the process of working on “Peasants”: “Virtual production makes it possible to pre-visualize the film, especially if it is taking place in an imaginary landscape that is practically impossible to find and do traditional filming there. Instead of using a green screen, the background is added in post-production so that the directors can see what it will look like directly on the set. At the very beginning, the Polish team wanted the village where the action takes place to be created through virtual production and placed on the set, so we created it before the shooting itself. Of course, the Polish team helped us with the authenticity of the village and additional interiors. When they did the whole film and editing, we entered the middle part of post-production, which is actually preparing reference material for the painters. The Digitalkraft VFX team prepared those reference frames for the painters together with the Polish team. Each painter had a space with a canvas, a projector behind them that projected a video file frame by frame, so they could switch them back and forth.”
Vladimir Vinkić, the supervisor of the painting team, explained the complete process of working with painters, from the selection itself: “Since the beginning of the production, we have had contact with more than 100 painters from Serbia, among whom we chose the first 25, and now there are 18 of us. These are mostly young people who have just finished university and for them this was less tiring than for those who are somewhat older, because you have to sit and paint every day for eight hours, one and the same with small variations. Over time, they became faster and better, and we, as supervisors, worked on it the most. I’m so happy for every single person that came into this studio because everyone put in a huge amount of effort. I think that a painter the painters here have gained as much experience in one year of work as much they would get elsewhere in 10 years”.
Aleksandra Đukić, one of the painters participating in the production of the film, said this about her experience working on “Peasants”: “The most interesting thing for me was that I had to study the painting technique so that it would be completely realistic, and still have a painterly charm. To be rich in terms of painting, but also very precise. It was a big challenge for me to do it all very quickly, to be able to do a completely finished picture within 2-3 hours. I constantly had to raise the quality of my work. I enjoyed following that progress from the first month to today”.
Director Dorothy Kobiel’s previous film, Loving Vincent earned $42 million at the box office. The Peasants is shot using the same painting technique that won the hearts of fans all over the world.
“After years of working on a film about Vincent van Gogh, I felt a strong need to tell the story of women: to show their struggles, passions and strength,” said Dorota Kobiela, director and screenwriter of the film.
The plot is based on the novel by Vladislav Raymont, winner of the Nobel Prize. The Peasants is a tragic story about a peasant girl, Yagna, who is forced to marry a much older, rich farmer, Borina, despite her love for his son Antek. Over time, Yagna becomes the object of envy and hatred of the villagers and must fight to preserve her independence. The action takes place in the Polish countryside at the beggining of the 20th century.